Wheelhaus
Veteran
Location: Denver
| here's some shots from an older setup, some things have changed byt the Vstabi system is the same. Changes are: longer ball links for the grips, metal grips, wiring rearranged slightly.
Here's the whole shebang. With a full metal head it looks REALLY clean and sounds smoother in the air without the flybar and 800 links.
Here you can see the swash driver I made from the washout base. To help the CG, I also mounted the head 20mm lower on the main shaft. This does the same as raising the CG, and I haven't had any clearance issues with the blades/boom. The washout base had about 4mm cut from the top and bottom. What was left of the bushings came out (small brass ring), so I epoxied it back into place. Since the head sits 20mm lower, the washout base had to be cut shorter to prevent interference and binding. I drilled two small holes into the meat of the washout base and threaded two bolts into it to act as locking screws to holt it in place. This washout base has adjustable phase timing and still allows articulation of the swashplate. At 0° pitch, the driver links are perfectly horizontal allowing even deflection in all directions.
The V-stabi has a "virtual cyclic ring" which reduces swash throw in the corners (such as full left cyclic and full aft cyclic combined), where the swash can potentially travel beyond the intended limits. This driver also works well at pitch extremes so I can give full positive or negative collective AND full cyclic and the links are never straightened out. The swash driver links should NEVER be straight as it could result in them retracting backwards and wedging the swashplate incorrectly. The machined aluminum pieces previously linked are longer and avoid this potential problem completely.
Here's the brain. All commands for pitch, ail, ele, rudder, and gain go into the V-stabi unit. From there, it's purely fly by wire and the V-stabi does the thinking on top of your inputs. Gain can now control much more than just tail gyro gain, it can set two completely different flight modes. Want the same heli for AP or competition 3D? hehe, flip a switch and you got it.
Dual Rates are still effective, they can control the overall signal limits for a certain channel. If you want the heli to fly the same in one flight mode but have two Dual Rates, it only changes the cyclic flip/roll rate, just like rudder DR does for piro rates. a dual rate of 80% will roll, flip, or piro slower than a dual rate of 110% on the specified command.
I'll take newer pics once she's been rebuilt.
..........
Dave
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...I figure I just paid a fortune for my MS/BS in electrical engineering, I might as well put it to some use
